But what if the master said that this is your talents, making this parable more about God’s generosity over our good stewardship. Could the attitude of God be, or at least this master, I give you these talents now see what you can do with them. The original Greek for “gives” means literally, “to give or hand over” implying, “giving up control.” Could Jesus be saying that what we are given by Him is ours? Is that different than saying we are stewards of God’s bounty? Look near the end of the parable, verse 29. It appears that the servants are not told or summoned in any way to give back any of the money to their master when he has returned. The one talent of the third servant is given to the first, not kept by the master. In contrast to this view, verse 25 indicates that the third servant obviously considered the one talent as belonging to the master and something he had to protect. How are you managing that which God gives you?

 

Now let’s look at verse 16: the first two servants worked or traded with the talents given to them. But the third, well Jesus uses a pretty critical word here. Verse 26 translates as written, lazy!

Understand in verse 16, work is not works righteousness. Remember in the UM church we could never do enough to get into heaven.  We don’t live on a Brownie point system. The only way to get on God’s good side is to…well, is to…well, honestly there is nothing we can do, we are all too sinful. Romans 3:23-24 says: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God’s grace is sufficient.  Any good work we do is out of gratitude for what God has done.  

In contrast to working, the third slave is lazy, literally, "shrinks" from work, no ambition. The story is told of a minister who, to show his reliance on God, entered the pulpit trusting that God would tell him what to say. After his prayer for guidance, he waited expectedly. God spoke to him, "You're lazy!" What divine words. How much of the demise of many congregations may be due to "lazy" clergy? How much to "lazy" members? Or lack of ambition from both? Know what Luther said, “sin boldly!" which paraphrased means, "Get off your duff and do something, even if it's wrong." For if you do nothing, God will do nothing, but even if you do wrong with the right intention, God will work it for good. For God’s grace is sufficient!

How are you managing folks?